Design of the Poco X3
In the Poco X3, the company has gone for a new design and it does not resemble any existing Redmi model. Compared to the Poco X2 (review), the new X3 has a single selfie camera, which is located at the top center of the smartphone. Poco hasn’t changed a thing in terms of display though and you still get a 6.67-inch panel with a 120Hz refresh rate. High refresh rates are slowly becoming rare in the affordable segment and if you play a lot of games on your smartphone, this is also an advantage for you. There are slim bezels around the screen, but the hole-punch camera can be a bit distracting for some.
As soon as you pick up the device, you will notice that it is heavy. At 225 grams, the smartphone is also heavier than the Samsung Galaxy M51 (Review), which has a larger 7000 mAh battery. The weight of the Poco X3 is well balanced and the phone is unlikely to fall out of your hands. However, after using the device for a while, your hands may feel tired.
Poco X3 Specifications
Poco X2 was launched around seven months ago and it has made a good mark in its segment due to its specifications. Little hasn’t changed much on the new phone; You still get a great Full-HD+ display with a 120Hz refresh rate. The panel also features a 240Hz touch sampling rate.
The phone is powered by the new Snapdragon 732G processor, which is similar to the Snapdragon 730G in terms of architecture, but has slight differences in CPU and GPU cores. As a result, you get better performance. Poco X3 is available in three configurations: 6 GB RAM with 64 GB storage, 6 GB RAM with 128 GB storage, and 8 GB RAM with 128 GB storage. The price of these three is Rs 16,999, Rs 18,999 and Rs 19,999 respectively. This review is of the medium variant of the phone.
While the international variant of the Poco X3 gets NFC, the Indian variant comes with a bigger battery. We get a 6,000mAh battery, which supports 33W fast charging. The Poco X3 also features stereo speakers and the smartphone comes with an IP53 dust and water resistance rating.
Poco X3 launched with MIUI 12 based on Android 10. Our unit was running on the September Android security patch. The X3 comes with many bloatware apps and games pre-installed and we suggest removing them if you don’t need them.
Poco X3 Performance
The Poco X3 has enough hardware to offer decent performance and we didn’t have any problems using it. The X3 was quick to load apps and games and handled multitasking without a hitch. We enjoy watching videos on the Poco X3, as the screen has good viewing angles and the stereo speakers enhance the experience. The side-mounted fingerprint scanner is fast and uses Face Unlock for facial recognition, which is just as fast as the physical scanner.
We played Call of Duty: Mobile and Among Us on the Poco X3 and the device did not show any lag. The screen refresh rate was set to 120Hz by default and we didn’t change it while playing the game. Call of Duty: Mobile ran smoothly on high settings without any issues. We played the game for 25 minutes and the battery of the smartphone dropped by 7 percent. The phone got a bit warm to the touch after playing games.
Battery life is good and the Poco X3 should last a day without a problem. The phone lasted 18 hours and 31 minutes on our HD video loop test, which is pretty decent. There is support for fast charging and a 33W charger is available inside the box. With this, the battery charged up to 57 percent in 30 minutes and up to 92 percent in an hour.
Poco X3 Cameras
The Poco X3 has a quad-camera setup that includes a 64-megapixel main sensor with f/1.89 aperture, a 13-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera with a 119-degree field of view, a 2-megapixel macro camera, and a There is a depth sensor. There is a 20-megapixel selfie camera on the front. The camera app is easy to use and has several shooting modes to choose from.
There are quick toggles for HDR and AI, giving you the option to adjust camera features as you shoot. The camera UI has changed in MIUI 12 and is now easier to use. There’s a new Vlog mode, which adds background music and video effects while shooting. This is a completely new feature and very useful for those who upload videos to social networks.
The Poco X3 adds watermarks to photos by default, so make sure you turn this option off in your camera settings before taking a photo. Its 64-megapixel main camera takes 16-megapixel photos by default. Images taken with the main camera in daylight had good detail, and even text at a distance was clearly visible. However, the camera aggressively suppresses blacks, reducing detail in the shadows. Switching to the wide-angle camera shows a wider field of view, but details are lost. The wide-angle camera also produced a slightly different color tone, which was clearly visible in the output.
Close-ups were good and the Poco X3 separated subject and background well. It also adds depth to the background nicely. Edge detection was good on portraits and the X3 also lets you set the blur level before taking a photo. The macro camera is limited to 2-megapixel resolution and lets you get up close to subjects, but output was average.
Low-light camera performance was average. Photos taken in default mode were soft and had a watercolor effect. Enabling night mode made a noticeable difference to the output: photos were sharper and had better detail. However, taking a photo in night mode takes 3-4 seconds. The wide-angle camera isn’t good for shooting in low light, as it can’t capture as much light as the main sensor.
Daylight selfies were decent and you have the option to take portraits with the selfie shutter. AI does not detect masked faces and does not blur the background in such cases. Selfies taken in low light were average, but the phone allows you to use night mode for selfies.
Verdict
The Poco X3 is an update of the Poco X2 and it brings some improvements. It does everything a little better than the Poco X2. It offers better performance and the larger battery helps it last longer. However, it is much heavier than its predecessor. If you were thinking of buying the Poco X2 but can afford to spend a bit more, you might want to go for the Poco X3 as it offers some decent upgrades for a marginal increase in price. Realme 7 Pro (Review) is another suitable alternative that you can buy for the same price.